


Rather Take A Risk

by Helicon



Series: Saving Face [4]
Category: Elder Scrolls, Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
Genre: F/M, Multi, Student Rivalry, Trans Female Character, Trans Male Character, Unplanned Pregnancy, a break from the fuckfest that was the previous installment, actual TESV plot as background events i suppose, complete with the consequences of it as well, familial guilt, magic headcanoneering
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-02-06
Updated: 2017-05-21
Packaged: 2018-09-22 12:37:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,692
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9607913
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Helicon/pseuds/Helicon
Summary: Things tend to settle down after going straight into hell headfirst.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Well, here it is. Two months of writing and self-doubt and thoughts of scrapping this whole project altogether, but I had to bring our boy back for another fic. He'll get it easier now. The worst parts of his life are pretty much over at this point. Enjoy, and as always, I welcome feedback!
> 
> (and yes I got the title from a Morcheeba song. shhhhhh. "God Bless And Goodbye" if you're curious.)

“So why can't you just magick your beard back on?” Volaris asks, feeling up Nethyn’s face for the second time -- he catches her hand as it drops downward, a mix of pity and envy on her own face, and puts it back on his. “It isn't  _ that _ obvious.”

 

“Even if I  _ could, _ it would  _ become _ obvious soon enough.” He folds his hands over his lap and tries to keep his mouth from moving too much as he speaks. “I'm running on nearly nothing as it is. Children tend to steal from the mother’s magicka reserves as they grow, that's part of the reason Telvanni families tend to be single-child.” He fidgets as she marvels at the smoothness of his jaw. “The animus is so strained keeping its body alive  _ as well as _ another one, that channeling magic from it until the baby has one itself is impossible and you're not listening.” He huffs. “By the time I could do any spellcasting again, I'd look ridiculous with the beard, don't you think?”

 

“I mean, I can imagine.” Volaris worries her bottom lip between her teeth. “So… why?”

 

“Why what?”

 

“Why’re you keeping it? Men don't have babies like this. Doesn't it hurt?” For clarification she taps on her chest, above her heart.

 

He removes her other hand from his face so she can't tell how upset he is becoming. “As an only child, I think I owe my family that much.”

 

“You don't have cousins?”

 

“None that I know of.” He doesn't stop her from placing her hands on his belly again. If she wants to that badly, so be it. “You're not going to feel anything, just so you know.”

 

She shrugs. “I'm living vicariously through you and your baby.” 

 

“That's weird.”

 

“That's life.” Both her arms wrap around him and catch him off guard, but the hug does not go unappreciated -- only unreciprocated. “What're you going to do, then?” she asks.

 

Nethyn considers this for a moment. “I already wrote Hekane. Corentin is her friend and she knows his wife, better her to tell the poor woman her husband’s a whore than me.”

 

“And Hekane said…?” Hand waving for him to continue, Volaris stares intently at him. 

 

He isn't quite sure if she means to stare or not.

 

“She hasn't written back yet. It's been almost a month; I know it takes a while to send a letter to the other end of Morrowind but you would think she'd be a bit more timely about responding.”

 

“What about Ev?”

 

It strikes him that Evesaes hadn't told her niece -- out of respect for his privacy? Volaris would have found out sooner or later. “She said that wherever I want to take this from here, she'll have my back on it. Her words. I think it's support, or something, but it's… eh, it's a bit late to get rid of it without a mess.” Her shoulders sink right in front of him. “...Sorry. That was insensitive, wasn't it?”

 

“Nah, I get why you'd want to. I'd take it off your hands if I could, believe me, if Rayya…”

 

“But I don't,” he says firmly. At any cost, he'll keep her mind off of Rayya, off their hiatus from each other, as Ev had called it. “I… it isn't in my best interests to carry it, but…”

 

“You feel guilty,” she finishes. “And I know part of that is my fault, I'm--”

 

Offended by the very implication on her behalf, Nethyn stands and pulls her up with him, grabbing her hands and holding them between his own. “Don't you say that,” he says. “Don't you  _ ever _ say that. What happened was  _ not _ your fault and neither is this.” His hands move up to her face and, despite the futility of it, turn her head up to look at him. “If I truly wanted to be rid of it, I wouldn't have waited to cry to Evesaes about it. Your situation would  _ not  _ have stopped me, I would’ve gone so far as to be bare before I left Dragon Bridge, Volaris. Do I feel guilted?  _ Yes, _ a little, but it's by the metaphorical ghosts of my blue-balled ancestors -- don't laugh, I'm incredibly serious about their unwilling celibacy, the poor things -- not you. You understand?”

 

She pauses, brings one hand to his and touches it as if to make sure it's there. “I understand,” she says in a softer voice than he's used to.

 

“Good.” He smiles -- a rare thing, these days -- and takes his hands from her face. “...You don't believe me, do you?”

 

“Not a bit.”

 

A breath huffed impatiently out, Nethyn shakes his head in disappointment and lets the emotion slip into his voice so Volaris knows. “That's alright.”

 

* * *

 

 

The day goes on as it must: Evesaes obsesses over his health, takes it upon herself to know what he's eating, where he's going, and when, his pulse, how he feels at any given moment -- he confronts her in the bedroom in frustration and her eyes turn to the floor in guilt.

 

“I don't need to be  _ kept _ all of a sudden, Ev.”

 

“Nethyn, how old are you?”

 

“Oh, gods, what… three hundred and twenty three, about two days ago?”

 

Her point apparently proven, Evesaes crosses her arms and grabs her sleeves tight. “ _ Yeah, _ Neth, you kind of  _ do. _ I keep tellin’ ya, no one your age--”

 

“I'm barely half yours.  _ Barely _ middle aged.” He locates a grey hair in the mirror, a lonely silver thing, and holds it up for her to see. “By mainland standards, anyhow. I'm only old on Vvardenfell, so hush.”

 

It doesn't work. In fact, it works the opposite of how Nethyn had intended it to go. “And d’you know how many older mothers I've seen go with their babes?”

 

“How many?” he asks in morbid fascination.

 

_ “How many _ isn't the issue! It's that it  _ happens!”  _ She paces across the floor, fretting, looking at him then back to the wall. “I don't wanna lose you, Neth. I'm just tryin’ to look out for you both.” Suddenly she grabs him by the shoulders and pulls him into her embrace, protective as if she herself were his mother. “You and Riz, and Zaria, you all’re all I got here. You're all okay but I want it to  _ stay _ that way.”

 

“How  _ is _ Zaria, by the way?”

 

“Stop avoiding the situation! ...She’s doin’ great, actually.” They separate and she crouches down to eye level with Nethyn. “Just… please, watch out for yourself. Let me help you. You wanna keep this baby, that's fine, but you won't be doin’ it any favors puttin’ yourself on the line, got it?”

 

Though he wants to point out that he's done nothing to risk his own safety in at least a week, and that Evesaes is only paranoid, he nods and invites her back into bed. The night is young, but his body is tired, and Ev’s presence might not fix all that but she doesn't argue.

 

Kissing her in the morning jostles the envelope that had been perched precariously on his cheek as he slept. He picks it up off the bed, squinting at the addressing and then breaking into a grin.  _ “Hekane!” _ he whispers, sitting up -- carefully, slowly,  _ don't want to get dizzy _ \-- to open it with unbridled joy in every movement.

 

_ I'm coming for a visit,  _ it says.

 

“Nothing else?” Ev asks over breakfast, later that morning. “She just said she's comin’ over?”

 

“That's about the gist of it.” 

 

“No telling when she’ll be here?”

 

“Not until she arrives. Which, given how long it takes to mail a letter, and how long it would be for one person to travel cross-country and then some…”

 

“She should have been here yesterday,” pipes up Volaris.

 

“...I don't like that look on yer face.”

 

“My face?”

 

“No, Nethyn’s face. Stop that, will you? You're creepin’ me out…”

 

Still grinning, Nethyn slams one palm on the table and laughs. “She's off-schedule! For the first time in her life, she's off-schedule.”

 

“And this is exciting, how?” Volaris asks.

 

“She was a  _ model _ student,” he says. “I can't wait to stick that in her face…”

 

“It's not like she's the only one off-schedule here -- oh gods, Nethyn, you know it was just a joke! Don't give me that tone of sigh, it was a joke and you know it.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trying to get back into a regular update schedule with this fic. I've got a lot of college prep in the coming months, not to mention making sure I graduate in the first place, so it might be a little off for a while -- but for now, with February break coming up, I'll probably have more time to write.
> 
> As always, feedback is greatly appreciated!

Clouds pass slowly over the sky, assisted by the breeze, like a tired sigh breathed out by the heavens. Nethyn does the same, but the most he moves is a lock of hair about half an inch from his face that immediately falls back down. Waterfowl drift across the half-frozen lake, in and out of his range of sight, becoming birds and then smudges of color within minutes. They’re never spooked by his sudden presence, which he finds strange, but never questions.

 

News of brazen vampire attacks on holds and settlements has reached their little corner of Falkreath Hold, but Nethyn still goes outside. Despite Ev’s protests, her insistence that he will get himself hurt; a mage without magic and at risk physically, who still smells alluring even to an older and more tempered vampire, would be easy prey for ferals. Despite their appearances in broad daylight, killing villagers and farmers and townsfolk alike, Nethyn goes out to town because Evesaes cannot.

 

“They're real territorial in Morrowind, but not so bad here,” she once said. “It's others I'm worried about. ‘Cause you got people learnin’ how to spot one better now. Don't matter anymore what I do for ‘em.” She paused then. “I'll still go, though. Someone’s gotta.”

 

Nethyn and Volaris insisted otherwise.

 

He gets a good walk in, he talks to Zaria for a while. She gives him unwanted congratulations that he accepts nonetheless, asks how the girls are, whether things have been resolved with Volaris and Rayya yet. She is disheartened to hear otherwise, but understands, and keeps Nethyn from having to try to explain something he doesn't quite get himself.

 

“So, when’re you expecting it?” she inquires over tea, once they're alone.

 

He considers it for a moment. Does some math in his head. “Late summer,” he finally concludes. “Early fall, the latest. I'm not sure.” When it became obvious that his winter illness had nothing to do with the weather, he'd given it a few weeks since and started counting from there. “I don’t imagine it's been that long. Three months at least; you can't really tell yet.” 

 

“With your coat on, anyway.”

 

“Yeah…”

 

Zaria raises a brow and sips her tea. “Are you sure it's just the one?” 

 

In spite of himself and trying to keep a cool demeanor, Nethyn’s eyes widen. “It better be! I can handle a mistaken date, but there's no multiples in my family… One’s bad enough, anyway.”

 

“I'll pray for you.”

 

“I will too.”

 

* * *

 

 

Hekane meets him right outside the front door.

 

They stare at each other in silence for three full minutes before Hekane approaches, apprehensive, squinting her already-narrow eyes at him. Her clothing isn't half as extravagant as Nethyn had expected, her face is abnormally plain and clean of the makeup she was so fond of before, and she looks him up and down like she's having similar if not the same realizations of him. “You weren't joking,” she says, finally. “You, ah… you've changed. Quite a bit.”

 

“So I've heard.” He takes her hand and leads her the rest of the way in. 

 

“And you're sure it's--”

 

“Hekane, I could lock the door and leave you out here for the vampires.”

 

“I saved you from Dagoth cultists,” she spits right back. “Vampires are  _ nothing. _ And maybe I'm wrong for calling your promiscuity into question, but what of your tastes and background-checking?”

 

Nethyn holds his tongue -- _she_ was one of his tastes, after all -- and closes the door behind her -- double-locks, jots down a note for Evesaes to put up the ward again. Hekane removes her shoes at the door and steps out of the front hall, looking around at the house’s interior and making a comment here and there about Bruma. Nordic architecture and the like. Before he can stop her, she is poking about the living room, in her stockings but not even having taken off her cloak, making note of every little thing and just about gushing over Evesaes’ shelf of old keepsakes from Vvardenfell. 

 

“These are mid-second era at the latest!” she exclaims. “Where did you  _ get _ these?!”

 

“Actually, they’re--”

 

Evesaes appears, then, at the bottom of the stairwell. Her skirt is wrinkled and her hair a mess, only a little concealed by a half-done scarf. “Mine and my mum’s,” she finishes for him. “Don't touch the arrows; far as I know the Vvardenfell cliff racer’s extinct and I won't be able to replace the feathers if you damage ‘em.”

 

“You technically  _ could, _ but--”

 

“Then I’d have the four-times-over scorned ghost of my mum comin’ fer my ass all the way from what’s left ‘a Seyda Neen.” Frowning, she holds out her hand, which Hekane grasps firmly and shakes. “Name’s Evesaes,” she says.

 

“Hekane. Nethyn told me about you -- you're his... ah, his new _partner?_ "

 

All too aware of the purple flush invading his face and ears, Nethyn avoids the eye contact that Evesaes tries to make with him. She only seems amused, that he would consider the two of them that way for sure, but his own embarrassment at Hekane’s bluntness kills his excuse in his throat. He stands there, shaking, blood rushing in his ears and drowning out whatever the two womer are saying, to or about him.

 

_ Get out of there! Idiot, get out! _

 

He makes a dash for the bathroom, hand clamped over his mouth in desperation. One of them comes after him -- heavier footfalls, it's Hekane -- but he shuts the door behind him, latches it, clutches the side of the bath tub and breathes deep through his mouth. His nerves fail to get the better of him. When he comes back to reality, the latch on the door is lifted of its own accord, and Evesaes and Hekane both step in.

 

He barely feels Ev getting her arms around him, barely hears her laughter-filled whispers that it's alright, that she loves him all the same. Hekane takes her seat on the edge of the tub, looking pointedly away as he buries his face in the vampire’s skirts. She lifts his head up and kisses his forehead, then cheeks, then on the mouth as she lowers her voice and asks: “I just thought we didn't have to say it, is all. You think I'd’ve slept with someone I didn't love?”

 

“I have an awful habit of expecting the same from others that I do from myself,” he admits.

 

“You're lovely just how you are, don't make all that out to be a bad thing.”

 

“ _ You _ never did anything stupid like this!”

 

“We all make mistakes.” She kisses him again, pulls him up into her lap, and he wraps his arms around her and chances a smug look back at Hekane. “Don't you think I'm any better’n you, okay?

 

“An’ don't think I didn't see that,” she adds directly into his ear, her voice the lowest it can go.

 

Semi-content, Nethyn nestles himself in the angle Ev’s body makes, suppressed chuckles a rumble in his chest while her hands cup his side. He rolls his hips in her lap under the guise of getting more comfortable, a façade which Hekane sees right through - she clears her throat loudly, gets up to indicate the door to them. 

 

“Oh, come off it,” Nethyn murmurs. His head does not leave Ev’s chest.

 

“It's more that you're clearly trying to do that yourself.”

 

“What a saint, giving us our privacy.”

 

“I'll leave, then,” she says, silently stepping out but still poking her head back in. “There's something I want to talk to you about when you're done.”

 

He waves her off, then waits for the door to shut again before reeling back and equaling Ev’s conspiratorial grin. It fades after a moment, during which he lurches right over her shoulder as she pats his back and gives him reassurance that it never lasts longer than this. His chest heaves against her, body in a cold sweat, hairline slick and face dripping and breath fouled but once he’s done, she props him up against a wall and kisses him again with a gentle caress of his jaw before cleaning up.

 

“I can do it myself,” he insists.

 

“It's nothing I didn’t do for Volaris ‘r anyone else.”

 

“I still feel bad.”

  
Evesaes gives him a look. “Go on, go talk to Hekane.”

 

Using the wall as leverage, Nethyn hoists himself up onto shaky legs. He wipes the worst of his sickness onto one sleeve and braces himself for what she has to say.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Something absolutely terrible to make up for the three-month hiatus.

Pacing before him, Hekane shifts her gaze back and forth to avoid Nethyn’s line of sight. For good reason, as well, as he follows her in agitated confusion. Every word that comes out of his mouth is blocked by an interrupting noise from hers. He grabs her arm, she jerks away. 

 

“I don't understand.”

 

She turns on her heel, whipping her entire body around to face him. “What isn't there to understand?” she snaps.

 

“You just…” he fumbles for the right word, gesturing wildly to her and the air and himself. “You come all the way here to tell me you're just going back, and you're taking me with you? Do I get a say in this?”

 

“Look, I understand it's a long shot, but don't you want to take that chance? I have good reason to believe the rest of your family’s been on the mainland this whole time, and you don't--”

 

His upper lip curls. “It's a  _ coincidence, _ Hekane. Do you know how many Varis there are? I knew a couple in Ald’ruhn, that doesn't automatically make them my second cousins! I have too much here to just up and leave,” he says, punctuating his statement with the hand on his hip slipping a little further to the left.

 

“I can wait.”

 

“I don't want you to.”

 

“Then come with me. What’s here for you and your baby? Corentin? He's not.”

 

Sighing, Nethyn takes her forcefully by the wrist and pulls her close. “Volaris.”

 

“Volaris?”

 

“She lost her child, and her woman over it. I’ll ask her if she wants to take mine once it's born, and don't side-eye me, she was  _ broken  _ over hers.” He holds Hekane’s palm to his chest. “Do you honestly think it would be better off with me?”

 

“Well…”

 

“Well, what?”

 

“You could just be rid of it--”

 

Nethyn’s open palm meets Hekane’s cheek with a loud  _ smack, _ teeth bared, a hiss on his lips as he turns away from her. The red clears from his vision in enough time for him to realize what he's done. To see Hekane cradle the side of her face, glaring daggers, brows furrowed, fingers curled like claws. 

 

Remorse peeks through into his conscience but is smothered thoroughly by indignance. “How could you--you think you can walk in and  _ suggest, _ after centuries of no contact and literally  _ five hours of being here _ that we--that  _ I _ make sacrifices for  _ you?” _

 

Too late, he notices, there is something  _ wrong _ in her eyes. He can't place it. But her rage equals his, if being hit were at all comparable to her own insensitivity (which was like being hit in and of itself), and the thought occurs to him that maybe this master of hers wasn’t entirely worth visiting in the first place -- even if he'd wanted to.

 

The pressure in the air increases. Is it a hallucination or have her teeth grown more pointed… Evesaes is upstairs and he can call for her but his mouth won’t move, even though Hekane does. 

 

Magic doesn't come when it's the first defense to come to mind, but Nethyn has his size over Hekane’s and she barrels into the side of his shoulder. He shoves her back, puts distance between the two of them and reaches blindly for something -- anything.

 

The last thing he wants, he swears to himself, is to hurt her.

 

The first thing his hands touch is a broom.

 

He screams, shuts his eyes, and imagines that she hasn't lost herself and isn't after him for a little overreaction. It collides with her temple just as Ev’s arms are around him, embracing him from behind and dragging him away from the scene.

 

“I didn't mean to--” he gasps. “I didn't mean to hurt her, I'd never--”

 

Volaris is there, working something warm into his chest while Evesaes kneels over Hekane. It's a calming spell that isn't doing much of anything.

 

“She's going to be okay, right?”

 

“Who’s her master?”

 

“I don't know.”

 

“I'd like to. You Telvanni are a mad folk for sure but I’ve never seen a one that  _ deliberately…” _ she trails off, muttering to herself. “I thought she smelled weird, when she came in, but I wasn't sure ‘til now.”

 

“But she's going to be  _ okay.” _

 

“Oh, for sure.” She lifts the unconscious woman over her shoulder. “You did a real number on ‘er head though. I don't think she'll remember it.”

 

“Deliberately what?” Volaris asks.

 

Evesaes swallows, screws up her face, and looks pointedly away from Nethyn. It's all lost on Volaris, who sits a little too patiently and waits for her answer.

 

“Her master’s either in good with Hircine or a beast himself.”

 

Nethyn’s heart drops. The little voice that used to be so chatty has gone silent, and he's finally noticed it's absence. “She said he might’ve been my family,” he breathes. It's barely even a breath.

 

“And yer not a monster yet, Neth, are you?”

 

“I'm not sure…”

 

“People hurt people all the time, hon. There's not a bit of monster in ya.” Her lips purse for just that one second that it takes him to notice. “Stressin’ out’ll do more harm than good right now. I'll keep an eye on Hekane, alright?”

 

“But she'll live.”

 

“Yeah.”

 

“And she won't hate me.”

 

“I can't say.”


End file.
